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The Internet of Everyone Vinton G. Cerf • Google Nii Quaynor • Network Computer Systems
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ore than a third of our planet is now online (www.internetworldstats.com/stats. htm). Each day, the Internet connects close to 3 billion users worldwide, and more go online every day.1 The Internet belongs to them. And that’s what the US government confirmed on 14 March, when the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced plans to transition its stewardship of a key component of the Internet ecosystem to multistakeholder responsibility.2 This is an important step toward policy globalization while protecting the open Internet. The Internet is expanding at an explosive pace. But as it grows, we must ensure that it continues to promote choice and competition, drive innovation, and infuse development across the globe. The NTIA has now said that stewardship for these outcomes will be best protected by the Internet’s global, multistakeholder community — in a sense, everyone. We were among the group of engineers who worked diligently to bring the benefits of the Internet to everyone on the planet. We endorsed open languages, protocols, and processes to support communication among the network of networks that make up the global Internet.3 This open structure continues to increase the Internet’s value. No one government, organization, or individual controls it.1 Instead, multiple stakeholders oversee the layers and distributed components of this global platform. Some concern has arisen that the NTIA’s proposed change could lead to a governmental takeover of these functions. We would oppose such a development. The NTIA has made it clear that it would not accept a proposal that replaces its role with a government-led or intergovernmental solution. The US government has served as steward for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 96
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(IANA) in large part because of the Internet’s origins in the late 1960s as a US-governmentsponsored research project. Since 1998, the NTIA has contracted with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to administer the so-called IANA Functions: coordination of unique Internet identifiers, specifically, the top-level domain names of the Domain Name System (DNS), IP addresses, and protocol parameter registries. For the past 15 years, ICANN has administered these essential identifier spaces to keep the Internet operating smoothly, and it has done so through a multistakeholder policy development process that it has repeatedly refined during that time. As has been anticipated even in ICANN’s founding, the US government is now asking ICANN to help transition stewardship of this Internet function to a mechanism rooted in the global multistakeholder Internet community. This action not only aligns with the fundamental spirit of the Internet, it strengthens its many benefits and resources. The NTIA is to be commended for its stewardship and its endorsement of and support for the multistakeholder model of administration. Open access to the Internet creates the opportunity to improve societies and enhance wealth creation through commerce. With Internet access, economies flourish. Thus far, global development from the digital revolution has been impressive. But as the open Internet expands and evolves, it faces new challenges and potential threats to its openness. Some governments and institutions are attempting to establish rules that would limit Internet access and use. This approach contradicts the inherent spirit of the Internet and threatens its ability to propel innovation. A fragmented Internet that is
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divided by walls will inhibit the free exchange of ideas, increase business costs, stagnate job creation, and fundamentally disrupt our most powerful global resource. Some countries have done and will do everything they can to stifle freedom of speech, but the proposed transition lodges responsibility for maintaining Internet openness in the institutions and individuals that have created and now operate and use the open Internet daily. Internet technology lets ISPs independently choose to use the global, common DNS that ICANN administers to assure global and uniform resolution of domain names. Even if some governments choose to isolate themselves from the open and global Internet, they cannot force the rest of the world to adopt a similar position. Though not necessarily familiar to the general public, ICANN, the Internet Society, the IETF, the Internet Architecture Board, the Regional Internet Registries, the Root (Zone) Servers, the Country Code and generic top-level domain operators, domain name registrars, ISPs, civil society, and the private sector are all part of the ICANN policy development and operational process. ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee also provides public policy input from the world’s participating governments to ICANN’s multistakeholder board of directors. ICANN is now charged with convening an effort to devise a multistakeholder process to assure transparency and accountability for the IANA functions that satisfies the criteria laid out in the NTIA’s mid-March announcement.
stakeholders. As our global online community grows, we need an Internet that belongs to everyone and is responsible to everyone — one that encourages us all to freely create and contribute, to speak, to be heard, and to prosper. References 1. “Panel on Global Internet Cooperation and Governance Mechanisms: Contribution to NETmundial,” Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, to appear, Apr. 2014; http:// content .net mu nd ia l.br/cont r ibut ion/ panel-on-global-Internet-cooperationand-governance-mechanisms-contributionto-netmundial/204. 2. “NTIA Announces Intent to Transition Key Internet Domain Name Functions,” US Nat’l Telecommunications and Information Administration, press release, 14 Mar. 2014; www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/ntiaannounces-intent-transition-key-internetdomain-name-functions. 3. “Marking the Birth of the Modern-Day Internet,” Google blog, 1 Jan. 2013; http:// googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/markingbirth-of-modern-day-internet.html. Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, and president of ACM. He’s widely known as one of the “fathers of the Internet.” Contact him at
[email protected]. Nii Quaynor is the chairman of Network Computer Systems in Ghaha, a former director of ICANN, and an Internet pioneer in Africa. Contact him at
[email protected].
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he US government’s decision to transfer its stewardship of this technical function is the right one at the right time. It’s an important step in ensuring that the Internet operates as intended for the benefit of all its
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